ron weight; another
command, and down it drops on the pile. It looks like a painfully slow
process, but the bridges are rebuilt just the same.
Further on, a variety of interest is furnished to a squad of French
prisoners being marched along the road. Then a spot of ant-hill-like
activity where a German railway company is at work building a new branch
line, hundreds of them having pickaxes and making the dirt fly. You half
expect to see a swearing Irish foreman. It looks like home--all except
the inevitable officer (distinguished by revolver and field glass)
shouting commands.
The intense activity of the Germans in rebuilding the torn-up railroads
and pushing ahead new strategic lines, is one of the most interesting
features of a tour now in France. I was told that they had pushed the
railroad work so far that they were able to ship men and ammunition
almost up to the fortified trenches. The Germanization of the railroads
here has been completed by the importation of station Superintendents,
station hands, track walkers, &c., from the Fatherland. The stretch over
which we are traveling, for example, is in charge of Bavarians. The
Bavarian and German flags hang out at every French station we pass.
German signs everywhere, even German time. It looks as if they thought
to stay forever.
Now we creep past a long hospital train, full this time, which has
turned out on a siding to give us the right of way--perhaps thirty
all-steel cars--each fitted with two tiers of berths, eight to a side,
sixteen to a car. Every berth is taken. One car is fitted up as an
operating room, but fortunately no one is on the operating table as we
crawl past. Another car is the private office of the surgeon in charge
of the train. He is sitting at a big desk receiving reports form the
orderlies. During the day we pass six of these splendidly appointed new
all-steel hospital trains, all full of wounded. Some of them are able
to sit up in their bunks and take a mild interest in us. Once, by a
queer coincidence, we simultaneously pass the wounded going one way and
cheering fresh troops going the other.
*How the Belgians Fight*
[By a Correspondent of The London Daily News.]
LONDON, Oct. 28.--Writing from an unnamed place in Belgium a
correspondent of The Daily News says:
"The regiment I am concerned with was fifteen days and nights in the
Antwerp trenches in countless engagements. It withdrew at dawn, hoping
then to rest. It marc
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